Category Archives: Deep Web

sOrRy – AROGANT gAtO -Open letter to:zhenling – jluo -wkui – xinwenfu – at seu.edu.cn cs.uvic.ca cs.uml.edu – I wrote to you and gave you a chace to reply so her it goes for everyone to see that you rigged your lab in real life it does not work like you claim – gATO OuT – may be wrong mAyBe Si -nO

Since entry onion router is the only node that may know the real IP address of the hidden service— -note [3] The assumption was made in virtually all attacks towards the Tor network. This is reasonable because onion networks routers are set up by volunteers.

WRONG folks — So criminals work in these sterile structured surrounding – following rules and making assumptions that I’m stupid enough to not know how to control ENTRY and EXIT nodes into my Tor Website— COme on Dudes this is not school it’s the real world… otwxbdvje5ttplpv.onion here is my site now find my IP —

WHo am I – Richard Amores – @gAtOmAlO2 – I run http://uscyberlabs.com – I just finished a boot -“ The Deep Dark Web” Amazon New eBook -The Deep Dark Web – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009VN40DU Print Book – http://www.amazon.com/The-Deep-Dark-Web-hidden/dp/1480177598 :- I do a we bit of real life research and I disagree — I go thru a proxie and a VPN in EU… before I go into Tor so the chances that you will find my IP just went up a notch or too. But I’m a legit – Security Researcher – imagine if I run Silk Road — making a bunch of Bitcoins a DAY— how many layers do they have—

how about a basic BRIDGE RELAY — and there it goes – u can’t touch this — how about a simple modification of the torrc file with theseHiddenServiceAuthorizeClient AND – HidServAuth
with these few modification the Tor site is hidden unless you have the key (HiddenServiceAuthorizeClient) in your browser/- that was generated to match the HidServAuth)-of the server– I think that your chances of finding my mean ass hidden service ip address —are ZERO…

I like what you’ll did cool analyst and you explained it great – but this puts fear into people – dissidents will maybe not use Tor because of what you guy’s say and maybe they may get caught and killed… It’s not only CRIMINALS — I know that gets grants money — but Tor is used to communicate and it allows – Freedom of Speech in Cyberspace- I’m gonna write something about this and I want to be nice so please explain why — you can say from an educational place of knowledge and allow this – “in the box” thinking that is being hacked everyday because they say— we did everything they told us to do— this is wrong and not true —

If you could get the IP of Silk Road — or better yet – PEDO BEAR the largest PEDO directory in TOR — tell me the IP and I will take it down myself— but don’t come at me saying we are right and every hacker is wrong — learn please our world is depending on your great minds —

later,
RickA- @gAtOmAlO2 http://uscyberlabs.com

Here is the original paper —http://www.cs.uml.edu/~xinwenfu/paper/HiddenServer.pdf
A recent paper entitled Protocol Level Hidden Server Discovery, by Zhen Ling, Kui Wu, Xinwen Fu and Junzhou Luo. Paper is starting to be discussed in the Tor community. From my perspective, it is a nice attack to reveal the IP address of a hidden service. It would require resources to actually implement effectively, but for Law enforcement trying to shutdown and arrest owners of illegal websites selling drugs, weapons, or child pornography and are hiding behind Tor, it is an option. Of course that also means the capability to find anyone that might be doing something a government or large entity does not agree with. The paper is here.
This stuff reminds me of a statement a professor said to a class I was in once: “Guns are not good or bad. It depends on who is holding the gun and which end is pointed at you.”

gAtO rEaD - in Forbes – “Biitcoin Prevent Monetary Tyranny” -mEoW- Currency tyranny by global bankers and government can be down right ugly. They can shape debt into deliberate inflation, they can enforce persecutory capital control or even pre-arrange default – let’s not forget LIBOR manipulation and austerity against countries after they have ripped out all natural resources, install a puppet king and all that jazz —/ everything controlled by THE BANK CARTEL. On the other side of the coin..//

On Oct. 6 Susanne Posel reported -/ an attempt to hack into the U.S.A executive branch’s computer system through an unclassified network. That’s the White House kitties with a simple “Spear Phishing” attack. They trolled for names of Top Military and government officials in Google’s Gmail account and got a few hit. Once again “Open Source Intelligence”

A few days later the Iranians government blocked Gmail by government officials due to fears that Email can be a point of infection for attacks- I think that’s in the security 101 course

Bruce Schneier one of our cyber gods that knows what he is talking about say’s it best about chicken little screaming “the cyber Sky is falling” – STROKING CYBER FEARS – “Secretary Panetta’s recent comments are just the latest; search the Internet for “cyber 9/11,” “cyber Pearl-Harbor,” “cyber Katrina,” or — my favorite — “cyber Armageddon.” But Bruce says it best in his own words “There’s an enormous amount of money and power that results from pushing cyberwar and cyberterrorism: power within the military, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department; and lucrative government contracts supporting those organizations. As long as cyber remains a prefix that scares, it’ll continue to be used as a bugaboo.” -may I add-/ to make lots of MONEY in private-corporation and government contracts worldwide. Fear + Cyber Security = BIG $$$

Fear is what bankers see as Africa is the first country that is being targeted for the BitCoin virtual currency. Imagine the turmoil in Nigeria and other places in Africa it has had a history of unstable governments the idea of a digital currency is appealing… La-Times read -Africa — the next frontier for virtual currency?

BUT the Bitcoin is NOT ready People – [1]Satoshi warned us – it’s BETA software – It has only 21 Million bit coins and the last Bitcoin will be mined in 2040 – Governments and corporations have already started the propaganda that Bitcoin’s are EVIL. —

The most important thing is, we must all be active in out lives to make the new future- They fear us “the people” will wake up and take control of our lives” – the new generation was born with a cell device in their hand and they are using it earlier and earlier to communicate.

The Cyber war that we see is not as bad as the Cyber War that is being fought with fear and propaganda because the bankers will lose control with – One World Currency – One World Government – that is what the hacktivist want, the new kids, the new generation.

Cyberspace is the city of Babel and in this mystical city everyone was able to communicate to anyone and exchange idea, dreams and culture—/ but this cause the priest to lose control so they destroyed it and made it EVIL. It’s only Evil when you lose your power, It is EVIL when you give them control and power — it’s our turn now -gAtO oUt

I learned that I hate WORD: – but it’s the general format for publishing – text boxes- get imbedded and you can’t format to EPUB or .mobi or anything – solution after going lOcO gAtO- was copy and paste into txt editor – save as RTF then copy paste back into a new WORD document and then reformat everything from scratch – and copy over the pictures – as you can tell I had fun-..-ugh mEoW F-F-F-F as much fun as a hairball but if it get’s the message out “FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN CYBERSPACE” then we done our job, anyway I hope you read it - Thank you Pierluigia best friend a security gAtO ever had – gATO oUt

This Book covers the main aspects of the fabulous and dangerous world of -“The Deep Dark Web” . We are just two cyber specialists Pierluigi Paganini & Richard -gAtO- Amores, with one passion and two souls we wanted to explain the inner working of the deep dark web. We have had a long collaboration in this efforts to document our findings we made infiltrations into the dark places inaccessible to many to give a you the reader a clear vision on the major mystery of the dark hidden web that exist today in the Tor Onion network..

The Web, the Internet, mobile cell devices and social networking has become commonly used words that identify technological components of daily Internet user’s experience in the cyberspace. But how much do we really know about cyberspace? Very, very little, Google / Yahoo / Bing only show us 20% of the Internet the other 80% is hidden to the average user unless you know were to look.

The other 80% of the Internet is what this book is about the “Deep Dark Web”, three words with millions of interpretations, mysterious place on the web, the representation of the hell in the cyberspace but also the last opportunity to preserve freedom of expression from censorship. Authorities and corporation try to discourage the use of this untapped space because they don’t control it. We the people of the free world control this network of Tor -Onion Routers by volunteer around the world.

The Deep Dark Web seems to be full of crooks and cyber criminals, it is the hacker’s paradise, where there are no rule, no law, no identity in what is considered the reign of anonymity, but this is also the reason why many persecuted find refuge and have the opportunity to shout to the world their inconvenient truths.

The Deep Dark Web is a crowded space with no references but in reality it is a mine of information unimaginable, a labyrinth of knowledge in the book we will try to take you by the hand to avoid the traps and pitfalls hopefully illuminating your path in the dark.

Cybercrime, hacktivism, intelligence, cyber warfare are all pieces of this complex puzzle in which we will try to make order, don’t forget that the Deep Dark Web has unbelievable opportunity for business and governments, it represents the largest on-line market where it is possible to sell and acquire everything, and dear reader where there is $money$ you will find also banking, financial speculators and many other sharks.

Do you believe that making money in Deep Web is just a criminal prerogative? Wrong, the authors show you how things works in the hidden economy and which are the future perspectives of is digital currency, the Bitcoin.

This manuscript proposes both faces of the subject, it illustrates the risks but also legitimate use of anonymizing networks such as TOR adopted by journalist to send file reports before governments agents censored his work .

Here are some question we may answers to:

How many person know about the cyber criminals and their ecosystem in the deep web?

How many have provided information on the financial systems behind the “dirty affairs”?

How the law enforcement and governments use Dark Web?

Let’s hold your breath and start the trip in the abyss of knowledge to find answers to the above questions. We hope that with this book you can learn something new about – The Deep Dark Web.

here you can take a look at this site anyway – try to extract any information from this secret Tor Website – you can’t see any source code – so you can’t make it error to extract information. I ask a friend that’s a Penn Tester to check this out – If anyone can extract any information please let me know –gAtOoUt

gAtO fRiDaY- sound off! – As i play with my new Tor hidden service – “Ok just apache website running https: a static site -right now” – What we know is that a Tor hidden service stays hidden until you send someone your .onion URL (example:- otwxbdvje5ttplpv.onion ) now once you know the URL your have access to the site. You may have to log in like on most bb sites but at least you reached the hidden service and now you can do stuff.

While looking at the torrc file setting I found a little secret that with (server side) HiddenServiceAuthorizeClient-tag and the HidServAuth-tag on the (client) side -// your hidden service is now INVISIBLE to only the people that have a secret key installed in their “torrc” client file. In plain talk –

1. I put a special key on my hidden server – torrc file – HiddenServiceAuthorizeClient
2. generate a new key for client side – “what_ever_bcuuw46b3heyy”
3. send keys to the secret agents that can see or access the site HidServAuth
4. Only the people with my KEY can get to the front door of my hidden service – torrc file HidServAuth

This makes it hard to find the hidden service even if you have the URL ///./. it does nothing, no source code like a normal website. I ran into a few of these and had no clue why these sites behaved the way they did. I can pick apart most websites, at least, basics like html, asp, js, java directory you can gleam all kinds of information. But if you hit one of these site in Tor well it a big 0 -zero -///.

With my TDS project (Tor Directory Scan) I am generating an onion URL A-Za-z 2-7 URL and going out to scrape it and get some basic information about the site with a basic web crawler that grabs METADATA and not just links to other pages. If I hit these sites with my basic program I’ll get a dud -zero -///- but I will have a hit of sort. I hope to catch some of these sites – we all know the rcp command works well in Tor sometimes I found and httrack is another tool for sucking up site // be they hidden service or not – these secret hidden services will be very interesting in the scan -gATO oUt

— Tor Syntax

HiddenServiceAuthorizeClient auth-type client-name,client-name,…
If configured, the hidden service is accessible for authorized clients only. The auth-type can either be ‘basic’ for a general-purpose authorization protocol or ‘stealth’ for a less scalable protocol that also hides service activity from unauthorized clients. Only clients that are listed here are authorized to access the hidden service. Valid client names are 1 to 19 characters long and only use characters in A-Za-z0-9+-_ (no spaces). If this option is set, the hidden service is not accessible for clients without authorization any more. Generated authorization data can be found in the hostname file. Clients need to put this authorization data in their configuration file using HidServAuth.

—HidServAuth onion-address auth-cookie [service-name]
Client authorization for a hidden service. Valid onion addresses contain 16 characters in a-z2-7 plus “.onion”, and valid auth cookies contain 22 characters in A-Za-z0-9+/. The service name is only used for internal purposes, e.g., for Tor controllers. This option may be used multiple times for different hidden services. If a hidden service uses authorization and this option is not set, the hidden service is not accessible. Hidden services can be configured to require authorization using the HiddenServiceAuthorizeClient option

gAtO hAs- been looking for this golden grail —how to customize a .onion address — but nobody knew how to do it or would never tell. Job security I guess but as I have been in i2p land and not much on Tor but I found this link to Shallot in github.com from and i2p site about Tor and i2p. Well the jig is up. I understand why it may not be a good idea for a custom name – It’s all about math and every custom digit of the 16 digit .onion address takes more time to calculate when your onion ur;l is generated in Tor. I have a new toy for a Saturday night project – Well here it is enjoy it- gAtO out

Shallot allows you to create customized .onion addresses for Tor’shidden services. (By customized, it is meant that part of the address can be selected. Choosing an entire address would take far longer than the universe is believed to have been in existence.)

A History of Shallot

Shallot has a long history in Onion Land. In its original incarnation, Shallot was originally written by a mysterious Onion Lander called Bebop, who created its predecessor, onionhash-0.0.1, at some unknown time in the distant past. That quickly(?) evolved into onionhash 0.0.2 and 0.0.3, until Bebop and Bebop’s New Home in Onionspace mysteriously vanished. At this point, it was picked up by `Orum, who gave Shallot its current name, and went through three versions until `Orum’s site, hangman – hidden (in plain) site, went down. I (katmagic) got Shallot’s sources from Tas’s site and put them into a Git repository. I made a few modifications, wrote a new README, and put the whole thing up on GitHub for all to see.

gATO mEsSeD – up with my BT (backTrack5) server I am using for my Tor hidden server — otwxbdvje5ttplpv.onion — To set up a hidden service is simple but you have to have a plan and gAtO did not have one—/ as usual I just go into it AND I wiped out mysql – I mean I wiped out my whole installation – Re-Set – I had to install Windows 7, then download BackTrack5 and re-install that- but once I went back and re-installed everything – my hidden service was getting and ERROR — NO ACCESS permissions error — This led me down a rabbit hole of things I never wanted to learn about apache2 server and linux commands but it was good at the end of 9 hours to beat the thing. OK end of Story…

LAB stuff.— My test BOX is Windows 7 and BT5 unbuntu-10.04.2 LTS

Files to Modify —

/Data/Tor/torrc

/var/apache2/apache2.conf

/var/apache2/envvars

APACHE_RUN_USER=gato

APACHE_RUN_GROUP=gat0

/var/apache2/ports.conf

/var/apache2/sites-available/default

/etc/hosts

These should be all the files to setup a hidden service in Tor. _BUT_ Tor cannot run as ROOT user so you need to create a normal user – I called it gato—

–/ gato User gets all permission for all Tor files and directories

—/ apache runs as ROOT so i run it as sudo

Apache installs it’s website in /var/www directory – as gato-user I need access to this and creating ALL TOR directories and files so Tor has the right permissions.

But any files on apache will have to have ROOT permissions:

I had everything set up right – but I was getting permission rights error on the Tor hidden service — after I checked everything I found the error the apache user had an environmental variable set to run as someone else not the / gato-user- and I found it in the apache enviers file..

/var/apache2/envvars

APACHE_RUN_USER=gato

APACHE_RUN_GROUP=gate

This APACHE_RUN_USER was set to wstools because that’s what the BT5 installation installed but never told anyone- so I chased this permission stuff down for 4-8 hours – re-booting and Tor start-up and test every setting – THEY SHOULD TELL SOMEONE BT5 —

Yeah this build has owner stuff mixed up a bit – I am still working on mysql stuff but it should be up next to install mediawiki – it should be a great learning curve AGAIN – but I am having fun and learning all my unix stuff back – good because I been working on php for the Tor directory crawler that I will be launching from this server in a few weeks…

I generated a few more hidden service keys to deploy some other sites later -Open up 2 more terminal windows – I can start stuff in background mode but during testing everything has it’s own terminal just in case.

I’m not going to give you my directory structure but just a heads up :

DataDirectory /var/lib/tor/

HiddenServiceDir /var/www/web_hidden_service

HiddenServicePort 80:127.0.0.1:8080

Since I’m testing I log to my terminal but a log error file will work better

Log notice stdout

So ok now comes the test – I have a static html website – a hidden service in the Tor .onion network. I did not go to icann for an domain name and pay them- I don’t have to pay InMotion for hosting service – just my cox-internet connection and a spare machine and I have a website in the dark web – This machine will host other websites – hidden services like wordpress, a bb bulletin board- or maybe some other web service – It will host my BotNet for the Tor Directory Project – Oh yeah I want to build a few bot’s for GOOD and map out the Tor Directory and make each Bot an OR (onion Router) so it helps the cause and gives back a bit. I plan to also run OnionOO – Arm – Atlas – mOnionO Compass and Weather.

SO if your out an about in Tor Land come on by and kick the tires and peek and poke my Tor hidden service website – otwxbdvje5ttplpv.onionif you find any openings let me know.pls As I add new features I will tell you about them -gAtO oUt

gAtO fOuNd - this –// it’s crook selling to crooks take it at face value -/ but it does have some interesting ideas on what is out there in criminals hands and what is going on in the dark web. Now these are 10,000 yes 10k botnets can work in the clearWeb as well asTor and i2p anonymized networks should cause some concern because normally we don’t monitor them. Tor Domain-flux for both clearWeb and Tor – ( Tor Domain-flux- this is so easy to do but it’s a big feature) – VPN then Tor that will make this harder to find the botMaster. But the coolest feature is the i2p connection. Sorry boy’s and Ladies but Tor is getting old, i2p is beginning to glow and it’s a little different but very safe. It goes after (scanning) WiFi and GPS tracking – So people sync your phone data to your computers data please…C&C and // one- BULLET proof server collector –

It not very hard to do this but – C&C and // one- BULLET proof server collector – is the sales pitch anyway I have obfuscated some links and names -find it your self – I know gAtO can build this so anyone can with some light reading – that comes out to .80 cents per bot for 10,000 bots -0ne c&c panel for $8,000 bucks – pretty cheap – oh yeah the readme comes in english too.

This modified Dark Heart bots and c&c in Tor ?12p ? 256-EAS encryption- We already have reports of it by different names but this was posted around Aug 7 2012. Here is the –/ poor mans –Tor Domain-flux is so easy when you generate a hidden service it produces a key for your address in Tor onion land / just move the key to another directory and generate your new net key and so on and so on… Some of this is really well though out —/ but I don’t trust anyone and it’s so easy to build from scratch- gAtO oUt

Bots will be assigned into small groups of 25. And are assigned 400 collectors bots which is evenly 200 tor and 200 i2p.

Collector packages the encrypted logs and imports them into a .zip or rar archive and uses sftp to upload through tor to a bullet proof server Note the Ukraine is best know.

(Domain-flux .onion panel can be easily moved)

Using a Ubuntu Server on bullet proof server. / Using tor and Privoxy. Panel can be routed through multiple cracked computers using proxychains and ssh. / Server uses a simple .onion panel with php5 and apache2 and mysql. You might ask what happens if bullet proof server is down. The collector bots can be loaded with 5 .onion panels. If panel fails for 24 hours its removed from all Collectors and bot will go to the next one and so forth. A python Daemon runs and unzip the data and Imports it into a mysql database were it remains encrypted.

The bot master uses my Dark Umbrella.net panel to connect to the remote Bullet Proof server through a vpn and then through tor using ssh to run remote commands on server and sftp to upload and download. Running tor through a log less vpn through with a trusted exit node on the tor network. .net panel connects to mysql database database is decrypted on .NET panel (Note must real Bullet Proof hosting is not trust worthy this solves that issue) and imported into a local .mdb database. Then later the bot Master should encrypt database folder on true crypt. Commands are sent to bots individually rather then corporately like most bot nets. This allows for greater anonymity It will be possible to send commands corporately but strongly discouraged. Collector bots download and upload large files through i2p.

14. voip logic bomb. bot computer is sent via a voip call file once played through voip the microphone hears mp3 file and the dormant payload is activated in bot that is the logic bomb. (Extra- Alpha)

Each Panel is hwid

1 unique build per Copy embedded into panel.

Everything is provided in English only manuals for setup: you need 3 servers for C&C and // one- BULLET proof server collector for -/ everything is working and can be setup within hours: Only serious players – for sale $8000 -bitcoin – (obfuscated )1A9nBLgdhf4NJadXiBppqqU96AhbMBQrgV -

gAtO bEen- working on Tor stuff and wanted to find the right torrc commands and configuration for Tor. So I started to look around and found these files. I guess if we look at these we could come up with maybe all the configurations keywords for Tor. gAtO is working on Tor and maybe some bot’s woking in Tor-land. The word is out and many are working on Tor botnets the good thing is most all are beginners, but the interest of people not wanting to rent a bot but build a bot is getting stronger. People wanting to learn code. Script kiddies with code this is not going to be pretty folks – hope you enjoy the torrc stuff- gAtO oUt

—File 1

## Configuration file for a typical Tor user

## Last updated 17 September 2012 @gAtOmAlO2 .

## (May or may not work for much older or much newer versions of Tor.)

##

## Lines that begin with “## ” try to explain what’s going on. Lines

## that begin with just “#” are disabled commands: you can enable them

Acrylic is a local DNS proxy which improves the performance of your computer by caching the responses coming from your DNS servers. When you browse a Web page a portion of the loading time is dedicated to name resolution (usually from a few milliseconds to 1 second or even more) while the rest is dedicated to the transfer of the page contents to your browser. What Acrylic does is to reduce the time dedicated to name resolution for frequently visited addresses as close to zero as possible. With Acrylic you can also gracefully overcome short downtimes of your DNS servers without disrupting your work, because in this case you will at least be able to connect to your favourite sites and to your email server. In addition Acrylic can help you to effectively block unwanted ads prior to their download through the use of a custom HOSTS files, optimizing your navigation experience even further.

## With the default Mac OS X installer, Tor will look in ~/.tor/torrc or

## /Library/Tor/torrc

+## Default username and group the server will run as

+User tor

+Group tor

+

+PIDFile /var/run/tor/tor.pid

## Replace this with “SocksPort 0″ if you plan to run Tor only as a

## server, and not make any local application connections yourself.

@@ -46,6 +51,7 @@

#Log notice syslog

## To send all messages to stderr:

#Log debug stderr

+Log notice file /var/log/tor/tor.log

## Uncomment this to start the process in the background… or use

## –runasdaemon 1 on the command line. This is ignored on Windows;

@@ -55,6 +61,7 @@

## The directory for keeping all the keys/etc. By default, we store

## things in $HOME/.tor on Unix, and in Application Data\tor on Windows.

#DataDirectory @LOCALSTATEDIR@/lib/tor

+DataDirectory /var/lib/tor/data

## The port on which Tor will listen for local connections from Tor

## controller applications, as documented in control-spec.txt.

—

— a/src/config/torrc.sample.in

2

+++ b/src/config/torrc.sample.in

3

@@ -44,11 +44,11 @@ SocksListenAddress 127.0.0.1 # accept co

4

## Uncomment this to start the process in the background… or use

5

## –runasdaemon 1 on the command line. This is ignored on Windows;

6

## see the FAQ entry if you want Tor to run as an NT service.

7

-#RunAsDaemon 1

8

+RunAsDaemon 1

9

10

## The directory for keeping all the keys/etc. By default, we store

11

## things in $HOME/.tor on Unix, and in Application Data\tor on Windows.

12

-#DataDirectory @LOCALSTATEDIR@/lib/tor

13

+DataDirectory @LOCALSTATEDIR@/lib/tor

14

15

## The port on which Tor will listen for local connections from Tor

16

## controller applications, as documented in control-spec.txt.

17

@@ -168,3 +168,5 @@ SocksListenAddress 127.0.0.1 # accept co

18

#BridgeRelay 1

19

#ExitPolicy reject *:*

20

21

+User tor

22

+PidFile @LOCALSTATEDIR@/run/tor/tor.pid

—File 6

Configuration tips

Using the same exit for persistant connections

Some websites will log you out if you re-visit (while loggined in using a cookie to identify you) from a different IP. Tor has a feature called long lived ports. You could add the following to torrc to make connections to given ports use the same circut for a long period of time:

A good alternative to LongLivedPorts is to use MapAddress for given sites. It allows you to make sure every connection to a given site goes through the same connection. This is also a good option if you need given sites to be visited from a given country.

For example,

MapAddress www.nsa.gov www.nsa.gov.nadia.exit

will make all visits to www.nsa.gov always use the edit node nadia, which is located in the US. There are anonymity issues with this; if you’re the only one using it then www.nsa.gov can at least figure out that it’s the same guy who’s visiting when connections are coming from that exit node.

=== Make Tor act faster ====

It is also possible to make Tor connections seem faster by setting CircuitBuildTimeout. Setting this number lower than the default (60 seconds) makes Tor give up and try other paths if it takes longer than the limit to build a circut. A circut which takes 50 seconds to build will be slower than a circut that takes 15 seconds to build. For example, you could set:

CircuitBuildTimeout 10

However, it must be mentioned that you will be using a whole lot more different servers if you allow circuts who take 50 seconds to build than if you set the limit to 10 seconds. There isn’t much solid research on exactly how this impacts traffic analysis resistance, but you’re – generally speaking – better off using a lot of slow servers than a few fast ones.

gAtO jUsT – finished an interview with Bill Donato from BotRevolt.com. I wanted to post this because these were good questions. My answers were a little lOcO gAtO but I tried anyway here is the Interview, at the bottom I included a conversation about Tor Controlled Botnet I found in HackBB in onion land, all I can tell you the code and how-to are out there -gAtO oUt

First Thank you Bill for this opportunity. I have 35 years in IT-and a little security goes with the territory but I’m no expert. I’m retired so I have the freedom to say what I want and I have chosen to support Freedom of Speech in cyberspace. You can find my rants and rages about security at http://uscyberlabs.com/blog I go by twitter @gAtOmAlO2 after my lionhearted cat “named- gato”. my 2 cents “be a critical reader, thinker and cyber user”. truet but verify

• We see a lot of cybercrime targeted at large companies, but how vulnerable is the average consumer in today’s cyber environment?

In todays economic climate cyber criminals see mass unemployment and use that to recruit shipping mules and money mules. Financial desperation and greed is a driving force in recruitment and the FBI is well aware of this a good money mule is hard to find and trust. Also Infection points for zombie computers to do the dirty work goes up and up with every new exploit. Last people don’t know how much information they leak out. With metadata just from the pictures in Facebook a criminal can gleam lot’s of information from the average Facebook update???.//

So to answer your question yes the average consumer needs to be very careful and have common sense. That lost Uncle from Nigeria did not leave you a billion dollars, trust me on this one.

• At the current level of cybercrime’s growth, if it is possible how long before the internet crashes?

Cyber crime is growing but CISPA is not the answer. PII (Personal Identifiable Information) that the government say’s it will not gather just your shopping and search cyber habits, nothing identifiable until you type in the wrong keyword, then your monitored. Then your footsteps in cyberspace will be monitored a bit more closely. The Judicial system now added the cyber forensic phycologist that can produce “minority reports- remember the movie – the though police…”. That’s scary..

Where were you last Tuesday @ 9:37 PM… they know, we are being monitored by the good guy in todays Internet. It’s normal to update my Facebook page or my Linkined profile, leaking data with the metadata from our pictures of our visit to the new office overseas. Can give criminals information for APT attacks.

As to the Internet crashing, I think it’s just beginning. We have Criminals after our data, government after our habits and we have ourself leaking information for everyone to know about me, me, me…. but it’s not crashing —> we have too many me..me..me..

• Cyber warfare is a hot topic, how will a cyber-war affect the countries average citizen?

Have you ever watch your daughter lose her cell phone 5 times in one year, 5 times not one backup. The effects of a cyber kinetic event in the US will happen. I see open scada system in the wild with no protection. Try and report this information that’s a joke and impossible. So many miss-configured scada all running windows OS, with no patch updates or management..// so they become more vulnerable everyday that they don’t upgrade.

Oh make that a tested Update because we (admin type) all stayed up late at nights un-installing an upgrade for -Windows OS- that made the Payroll system -Oracle- not work so NO paychecks….

In other words it will happened because we have a pretty bad security system built into these devices and they are to expensive to replace it’s worth the risk from a financial side so companies ROI return on investment… they did the cost analysis of an attack -they know they will get hacked…Power grid YeaH Baby and we have no backup — but we still come back… the average citizen has to ride it out we have no choice in warfare.• You talk on your website, uscyberlabs.com, about the rise of botnets running on the tor .onion network, is the tor network a threat to people who do not access it? If so how do users protect themselves?

Botnets in Tor on Yeah! I’m doing some research into botnets in the Tor Black Market and it’s alive and kicking. The Tor hidden service and C&C servers goes hand in hand. You can’t find it, and it can’t be found. We also have i2p as an up and coming secure anonymized network so expect more and more from this area.

I included a post from HackBB-website in the onion network this discussion is about “Tor-Controlled Botnets” I included the code so in Tor there is talk from the hacker world on how to guides to Tor & bonnets. and it’s has a current timestamp.

• On your blog titled “Online Security Basic -should I use encryption” you give some great information. What encryption programs, methods or tips do your recommend for some of the less computer savvy users?

Well first of all here [below] is my public key if you want to send me a message. I use FireVault and encrypt my hard drive, but I forgot my password – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it..;) I use GnuPG. Since I’m not doing skunk work, and I’m not a spy, I try to go open-source type programs, yes they are a little harder to learn but I feel safer with the open aspect of it. In security we have a motto – trust but verify – I can verify these open source program…./

One thing that the average user needs to do is to make their privacy a key part in their cyber life. When you start down the security rabbit hole it’s an active step in your cyber lifestyle.

Privacy is a personal thing, when I’m looking for Preperation H I don’t want Google, Yahoo or Amazon to know about this medical problem, it’s kinda personal, private. But when I’m trolling on Huffington Post it’s another world.